MLGW, EMA Better Prepared After Hurricane Elvis

(Memphis) It’s been ten years since Hurricane Elvis tore through the Mid-South.

WREG’s Todd Demers was in the News Channel 3 studios ten years ago, watching as the storm hit.

“It was overwhelming because it was somewhat unexpected for that storm to deliver that kind of punch as it came through the Memphis area,” he said.

In the past ten years, MLGW has been working to prepare for storms like Hurricane Elvis.

Thousands were without power for weeks after the storm.

“In 2004, the state of Tennessee passed a law, a mutual aid law, that said any municipality in Tennessee can help another municipality out without already previously having contracts in place. So that greatly sped things up. And then also since then on a national level, congress has passed a similar act,” said Callen Hayes, crisis management coordinator for MLGW.

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Shelby County Emergency Management has since worked with county and grant money to set up an emergency operations center filled with new equipment.

“The images, the GIS and all of the technology we are able to bring in and have live feeds. So a lot of that has changed in one word that would be technology,” said Shelby County EMA and Homeland Defense Director Bob Nations.

“The pulling people together from six counties and how well they’ve built a network,” Nations said about the work done in recent years.

Nations said they continue to constantly plan for the next big storm or earthquake to hit the Mid-South.

“It’s not as if you can just have a plan and that’s it. This really is an action matter, so it’s planning,” said Nations.